Tamil Tigers

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, was a socialist revolutionary organization that fought for Tamil self-determination on the island of Sri Lanka. Founded on 5 May 1976 by Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers sought to achieve the independence of "Tamil Eelam", a region for the Hindu Tamils to live in freely, without having to be governed by the mostly-Sinhalese Buddhist population of Sri Lanka. In 1983, the Sri Lankan Civil War broke out when LTTE fighters ambushed a Sri Lankan Army patrol, and major sections of the Tamil community supported the LTTE due to its many victories, policies, and calls for national self-determination. The group invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of women as suicide bombers, and it became the first militant group to assassinate two world leaders; Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, while President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated in 1993. By 2000, 76% of the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka were under LTTE control, but the failure of peace talks in 2006 led to the Sri Lankan Army launching a renewed offensive. In 2009, the last LTTE leaders were killed, and the LTTE was defeated.